Who knows Christ is different as before

We are going to the word of God and we are going to touch again First Peter, 2 of verses 9 to 12.

Verse 9 says, again “.... but you are a chosen lineage , royal priesthood, holy nation, people acquired by God so that you may announce the virtues of him who called you out of darkness into his admirable light. You who in another time were not a people, but who are now the people of God, who in another time had not obtained mercy, but now you have obtained mercy. Beloved, I beg you, as foreigners and pilgrims, to refrain from carnal desires that battle against the soul, keeping your way of living among the Gentiles good, so that in what they murmur about you as criminals they may glorify God on the day of the visitation when considering your good works....”

Father I ask that it be your Holy Spirit speaking to me and to all, Lord, we are hungry and thirsty for your bread, Lord, the manna that your you give. Lord I ask you to feed us in Jesus name. Amen, amen.

This text says that when someone meets Christ he is different than before. He says that before you were not a people but now you are the people of God. Think about this, in this place, today this morning we have people from how many countries, 20 countries out there, we have so many different people that some have come out of very ugly situations on the street, some have spent time in prison, others have had pain strong in their life, that they never would have thought they were going to congregate in a church, and participate, and take discipleship classes and recite verses. It's a surprise.

There are some who say sometimes, and I love hearing it, 'I can't believe that I'm here after what I've been through, the person that I was and here I am in church raising my hands, kneeling praying with tears. I would never have done it before in my life.

I know that for some people these steps mean a lot. When they surrender to the Lord, when they allow themselves to be touched by the Holy Spirit, they think 'I can't believe it's me here. I'll be crazy.' He doesn't know, because they've changed.

And I am fascinated to see that light begin to light up in the eyes of God's people. When one can almost see the loads lifted from their shoulders, loads of sin, of bitterness, it is especially noticeable when one takes the step of beginning to forgive others who have offended them, it is as if a shadow had been lifted. and there is new light and new joy in their lives.

We are a glorious people. You know that the glory of Jehovah is called in the Old Testament, the shakiná glory of Jehovah, it means the visible glory, an almost palpable light that rests on the people of God after knowing Christ. It's something beautiful, it's something cute.

But how many of us know that this transformation process is not overnight? Overnight into tomorrow, from today to yesterday, it's not fast, it's a long process sometimes. I know that in discipleship sometimes I have people who say when they are taking classes, 'Gregory, I don't feel capable of graduating because I still have a lot of rough edges, I have my character. Just today I found myself saying something wrong,' and they feel guilty. And we after that remember, you know what? we are a work in progress, we are a work in progress and thank God the change does not depend on us, it does not depend on me. The Christian change is called the process of sanctification.

What does that mean? What does it mean that we are in the process of sanctification? What does that mean? That we become more and more like Christ. If we say that we become more and more holy, many of us visualize a statue that is there in a plaza in Central America, but the truth is that to be holy is to be like Jesus, to walk like Jesus, to talk like Jesus, to interact like Jesus, to work like Jesus, to greet like Jesus, to walk like him, to ask the question: what would Jesus do in my place?

That is the process of sanctification, but it is a long process and it does not depend, he says again, on our strength. How many of you have tried at some point in your life to make a New Year's resolution? In this year January you decide, this year I'm going to lose weight, I'm going to I don't know what'.... I'm not going to I don't know what... what you said, but it must be something bad that you wanted to stop doing, thanks bye bye. This year is going to be different. And those who work in the gym know that the gym fills up in January and by February and March everything is the same as before. Because willpower is not enough to break the ties we have.

We buy it with the monkey that we have on our shoulders. Do you remember that, level 2? Which starts out as a pet. You've heard a saying from people coming out of addiction, 'I got a monkey on my back'. I have a little monkey there that I have to feed that little monkey or it eats me, and an addiction is like that. I have to feed the addiction or it dominates me. I can't go on without it. So they say, I have that monkey, which began as a pet monkey that I had and I fed it a little guineíto, one more guineíto. It was my pet, a little sin, nothing so bad. But it grows, and it grows, and one day it tells me, "Look, I want a banana," but the voice is no longer just a baby's voice, I want a banana, and you say, "I don't want to give you a banana today." He squeezes the hairy arms and says, 'no, give me the banana now', and you already..... ah... you have no choice, you have to feed the monkey.

The monkey is like the sin within us. We by our strength cannot overcome sin and the problems of life. But thank God in Christ there is something different about you. If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and savior, there is a new spirit living within you that has come in and that spirit has life and spiritual power to transform you. It is like a divine electricity that transforms our character to be more and more and more like Jesus. And it's a spiritual process, it's not a willpower process that doesn't work. It is trusting that God will do the work in me.

How many know that if you neglect to pray for a while, if you neglect to congregate for a while, if you stop reading the word for a while and walk away, you are not connected to the vine? What's happening? If a branch is separated from the vine, it begins to dry up and no longer bears fruit as before, and if we neglect to seek God, and plug ourselves into that spiritual power, we begin to lose that anointing, that divine energy that can dwell within us and we leave the old man, the old man or the old woman.

How is your old man? I'm not talking about the husband. How is your old man? I know how mine is. When I neglect to seek God as I should, certain attitudes, certain perspectives, certain complaints, certain anxiety, certain things come out of me, and I recognize, 'ah, ah, old Gregory is coming out again, it's time. to heal or it's going to get very ugly and I don't want that anymore, it complicates my life'.

What I need to do when it starts like this, take a day to fast, or take some time, I'm going to confess something, I like to get into a hidden place where no one hears me and shout to the Lord in tongues for a while like crazy. This is crying out to the Lord in spiritual language.

And I don't know after half an hour of that, it's like medicine, I heal. I feel better, I'm not as bad as before. I'm still bad, but not as bad as before, because the power has already started flowing again. I'm in my five senses again, we'll be back.

We know that the power belongs to God but we have to be connected with that power, we have to collaborate with that power and God has his way of fulfilling the mission he has in your life. He has a plan for your life. He wants to transform you so that you are like Jesus, but in your personality, in your life, in your culture, in your work, in your family, he wants you to be just like Jesus would be if he were you.

And the Holy Spirit does it, does it in many ways. It is a process that is sometimes a little violent, sometimes hard medicine is needed. Do you know what happened in our home a few months ago? My wife and I were Sunday night in the living room where we were doing something, I don't know what, and we already felt a jolt, like pom!, and the whole house shook and we looked at each other... could it be an earthquake? ? My wife is from California, she gets scared by anything, whatever. It was a strong jolt, he lay down a few things and we looked down and a car had collided with our house. Go figure. Thank God no one was hurt, they were fine, but we thought, what's weirder than someone crashing into our house?

And then it started making sounds over the next few in our heater. How many here have heaters that are the old style, steam... I don't know if many have those, and sometimes they bang! Bang! Bang! But it started to do it but hard, hard, and it shook the house and we saw an ugly, smelly liquid coming out of it. And we ask a plumber, and he says that sometimes when there's a 'when there's a big bang' the heating system shakes and there's like a well-settled dirt in the heating, it shakes and loosens and it moves in the steam and causes that leak and sometimes the sound. How cute no! It's sludge, it's dirt so settled it doesn't move unless there's a bang! Strong, and then you have to flush water into the system to get all that nasty stuff out of the system. But if there is not a strong shake some things will never change in our lives.

And I think of the Apostle Paul who, before being Paul, was Saul, he was bad, he had bad habits, habits like killing Christians. Do you think you had bad habits? He went around killing Christians, men, women, children, that was his vice before. God had to.... what did God do with him? Knocked him off his horse, bang! And he was blinded for three days, and he says, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' 'Who are you, Lord?' 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.' ‘but how?’ I needed a strong medicine. It is like that in life.

Sometimes the spirit uses a shock, a strong jolt to wake us up, to loosen the dirt that is so sedimented that it does not change otherwise. But God's purpose is for us to be free from bad influence.

Did you know that our heating now works but fine, fine, and quiet? We cooked last night because it was.....because it works. The jolting is not pleasant but afterwards..... wow... I feel free, better, better than before, thank God.

Sometimes God has to use a whip to clean house. Jesus, some think that Jesus is so soft and cuddly that he never got upset about anything. When Jesus saw people selling in the temple, what did he do? He took time to make a whip and began to bang, bang, to get them out of there, knocking over the tables. This house is a house of prayer, you have changed it into a market, into a den of thieves. Jesus sometimes has to give us a good whack so that we learn, right? Sometimes it's fire.

How many of us know that fire is a purifying agent? As Malachi says that God is like a purifier with fire who passes the gold in the fire and burns and all the impurities rise to the surface and the gold that remains is gold refined in the fire, gold that is worth. If you have gone through suffering, you know that later you are purified like refined gold, and the impurities have come to the surface to be visible, to be cleaned. How beautiful, the process of the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes the Lord has to smooth us down a bit, and you know what he uses to do this? Something that is rough, to play against our rough edges. What are the things that border on the roughness of your character? They are usually rougher people than you. If you have a problem, God sends you someone normally at work, a boss, a friend, a partner, a wife, a husband, a son to smooth you out a bit. If you let yourself be, some spouses looking at each other like... iron against iron... iron against iron and they look good, very sharp, thank God, a living example.

But look, it's like that. How many here have had a friend who had, and we're not talking about anyone in particular now, with a medium-difficult and strong character? After getting married, sparks fly because he marries someone stronger than him normally, pam, pam, pam, sparks, without violence, we are speaking words, things like that. But after that, if they submit to the Lord, both remain, the man remains different, the woman remains different, softer, more like Christ. For some they get stronger. It is not easy, it is not pleasant, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit to form us to be like Christ.

Thank God purification is not always difficult. Sometimes God purifies you in refreshing and gentle ways. There are some who do not need a blow so much as an oil to anoint their wounds and heal a little.

We know that water is a beautiful cleaning agent. You have a dirty pot, instead of scrubbing, scrub, look, I'm going to leave it there with water for a while, and it rubs more easily. The water of the Holy Spirit softens us, changes us.

I know people who were so tough ten years ago that sometimes now they say things so soft that I even wonder, brother, sister, are you okay, are you okay? Don't be angry. You are calm, you are healthy. It is that the Holy Spirit has softened his harshness. The water of life refreshes the soul.

Baptism represents a burial and new life and also represents a good bath that God gives us, thank God. A mother told me, 'Gregory, keep my daughter downstairs for a long time because she is very dirty, she throws bleach and that's it... well, I want her very clean'. Symbolizes cleanliness, water.

The wind, the Holy Spirit comes like sometimes a breath, sometimes a wind. A wind can clean because when the wind blows the dust leaves. One can use a leaf blower or a snow blower to blow and remove snow. Sometimes the wind of the Holy Spirit does the work.

That's why when people come here in front, they don't do it for fun, they do it because God knows they need an encounter with the Holy Spirit and they come and are here crying and crying out to the Lord and the spirit makes the work, sometimes in a month, two months of intensive search for the Holy Spirit here, more neuroses and problems are cleared than 10 years of psychotherapy. And I believe in psychology, it's worth saying, but the spirit has power and transforms. I encourage you, look for this fullness. Works.

Another way to heal is sunlight, sunlight. You know that a famous man who was a famous judge, Brandice, named a university after him. Brandice said that sunlight is the best disinfectant there is. You put something ugly in the sunlight and it sanitizes a bit, right? Works. That's why he puts on his clothes... how nice when you put your clothes on outdoors. Maybe here in Boston not as much as in the country, right? because there is more pollution. But do you remember how clothes felt after being outside in the wind and sunlight. Oh how rich It is so with God.

If we put ourselves in the light and let things be on the table, they are cleaned, they are cleaned. We say a lot in discipleship that cockroaches and mice live in darkness. You turn on the light and what do they do? They hide. It is so with sin and with demons, I say.

When people start confessing their sins, to each other... look, this is not Catholic, that's Biblical. Confess yourselves.... and Catholics are biblical many times, I'm not criticizing. But, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other to be healed.

When we confess to a brother a struggle that I have, oh, how beautiful the light is, the person prays for me and I feel healed. I am already forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ but I need the brother's prayer and when he is put in the light he is healed and free. Brother, I hope that everyone has at least one Christian, mature, discreet friend who knows how to keep a secret in whom you can confide your personal struggles. It is important, it is important that sunlight heals us, confession and many things.

We also have to sometimes, you know what? I sometimes go to houses, they invite me to pray to cast out demons. I don't know, God does it, and we pray, we worship and we cast out all the demons from the house, we pour oil on the kitchen, bathroom, bed, oil, oil. We prayed and then, when we were about to leave, we felt the joy of the Lord and we looked in the room, a saint with candles and an altar and all that... it was, as if I were a fumigator and I kill all the flies and you leave the window open for more to enter. Sometimes you have to get rid of certain things, right? Or we're going to let us continue in trouble. That is, you have to close the window of the house, you have to close certain doors and say, no more ugly things. Close the door to the enemy and do you know what the word says? It is one thing to clean the house and sweep the house so that everything is clean, but if you do it and leave the house empty even if a demon has left, that demon will look for 7 demons uglier than him and he will return and live in this home again. It's not just cleaning the house, it's filling the house with the things of God, filling my life with prayer, seeking the Lord, serving so that I'm so busy with God that there isn't even time to sin like before, right? This is cleaning. How nice to throw away certain things.

My wife and I tagged out and I went crazy throwing things away, I throw that, I throw that, I throw the other, how nice, how clear one feels and it should be like that with the things we carry in the life.

To finish I just want to say that the Gospel works, brothers. The Gospel really works. The word says that I am not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. And it is so. We can trust that God does the work and the Gospel means that there is one who died for me and for you.

I don't know if you have heard people say that I ask for the blood of Jesus to cover this person, or to cover myself. Have you heard this phrase? Because? He says that Satan is an accuser, he is a prosecutor, like in court and he has a case against us because each one of us has broken the law of the Lord and the accuser comes with accusations against you and me, he says, this person has broken the law, he deserves death. And we, thank God, are in court with the accusations and we have no defense because we are guilty, but later we know that we have a lawyer, a lawyer who has paid the price for what we have done with his own blood, he died in our place. And I can tell Satan if I am guilty, but the blood of Jesus has paid for my sins. I am under the blood of Jesus and you can no longer accuse me.

Brothers, blood works. It works like no other agent. The Bible says that the blood of Jesus purifies the conscience, so that I feel that despite my past, despite what I have done, I am clean, even though I am in the process, I am already holy in the name of Jesus and by his blood and I can trust him.

Brothers, it is the mercy of Jehovah that brings us to repentance, it is the grace of God. I want to end with a story that we all know, the woman who was found committing adultery, that woman was brought to Jesus wanting to stone her because she had broken the law and she asks Jesus, 'has that woman broken the law, what should we do? The law says that we must stone her and what do you say? The Bible says that Jesus began to write in the sand with his finger, with his finger in the sand for a while, as if only half listening to them. In the Bible there is another finger on Mount Sinai, another finger, the finger of Jehovah who wrote the 10 commandments on two tablets, the finger of Jehovah. Jesus was saying, do you think I don't know the law? I wrote the law, I know it, and the one who has not committed sin must be the first to throw the stone.

And then he says to the woman, 'Woman, go and sin no more.' When everyone had left, he looks into her eyes and says, where are those who are going to condemn you? And she says, 'there is no one else to condemn me', he says 'I am not going to condemn you either, go and sin no more'. With this act of love, I believe that she never returned to her life as before, she changed to be a follower of Jesus, because of the mercy of Jesus in her life.

Brother, sister, cling to the Lord, receive his mercy, receive his love and be transformed by that love that God has for you, but this is serious, you don't play with God. He is going to ask each one of us to account, he has opened the door, he has paid the price and he says, 'come out of the shadows, confess your struggles because today is the day of salvation, another day will come when it will be too late, but today It is a day of mercy, it is a day of salvation. Come, receive the love of God today. Amen.

I invite you to stand up and let's pray. Father, we come before you Lord, we thank you, Lord, that we are the clay but you are the potter and you know what you are doing with us, Lord. I ask you, Lord, that you do the work in me, in my brothers, Lord, that we be purified by you.

Brother, I invite you to put your hand over your heart. Moses when he put his hand over his heart, he put his hand out and saw the leprosy on the hand, as if he was looking at the condition of his heart. We all have leprosy inside but thank God Moses stuck out his hand a second time and it was a clean hand like a baby's skin.

And Father, I ask you all together with your hand on your heart, we ask you, Father, that you heal us, that you purify us, Lord, that you forgive us for our struggles, for the double life that Sometimes we have, Lord, to stop, Lord, to trust in your word that is a light for our path. Oh Lord, we touch the heart and invite your purifying spirit, transform us, Lord, make us more like Jesus, Lord. Purify us here Lion of Judah, as a church, we cover ourselves, Lion of Judah we cover ourselves with the blood of Jesus, we cover ourselves with the blood of Jesus. We left the we left.

We say 'Lord, change me, transform me, set me free, Lord, I want to follow you, Lord, in the name of Jesus, Lord. We are committed to you. Thank my Lord.